Intrigued by Chinese art
By Samuel
Photos by Yao Fan

The 2004 Philippine-Chinese Student's Chinese Language Study Group arrived on April 1 to start a 50-day language-focused Chinese culture class at the Overseas Education College, Xiamen University. Their culture classes cover Chinese painting, calligraphy, Chinese folk music, Chinese songs and also martial arts. The 280 group members are mostly overseas Chinese and these classes are new and interesting to them.

厦门大学海外教育学院四月初迎来了280人的菲华学生华语进修团,其中大部分成员是华裔.为了让他们更好地了解中国文化,海教特别设置了书法,绘画,武术,民乐等丰富多彩的课程,极大地激发了他们的学习兴趣和热情.

Martial arts
Being 6 feet tall and muscular, 16-year-old Lin Zhenbai looked like such a sportive boy. But like many of his classmates, Lin just took his very first lesson on martial arts in the Overseas Education College of Xiamen University.

The teacher led these curious students to a stretch of grass in front of the department's building and then divided the 30-person class into three rows before she taught them a 10-minute warm-up exercise. Lin Zhenbai, being the tallest in class stood at the end of the second row. He watched and followed the special warm-up for the martial arts class.

Lin said he played basketball regularly when he was in Manila. He had been doing bodybuilding in gym for six months, but this was his first time to try martial arts.

"I knew martial arts long ago through many TV series, or movies, like the ones starring Jacky Chan. I thought it was great fun but I didn't get a chance to learn it until I got here," he said."But what I learn here is easy and different from Jacky Chan's Wu Shu, which I like better," he added."The difference between body-building in the gym and martial arts is that the latter stresses balance, focus and discipline more than muscle-building," he said.

Calligraphy
Fifteen-year-old Cai Mingxin is one of the top students in the calligraphy class. On the afternoon of April 15 when Common Talk reporters went to her class, she and her classmates were practicing "Mont Guanque Tower", a poem that was written during the Tang Dynasty.

Cai is not the one in class who can finish the piece very fast, but she is one of the most meticulous students who treats every stroke with constant sincerity. Before she would start on each character, Cai looked up and studied the sample piece hanging on the blackboard for a while. Then she slightly dipped the brush-pen in the ink, tried some strokes on the draft to test the ink's intensity and then drew the character carefully on the paper. We watched her finish the last two lines "You will enjoy a grander sight/ By climbing to a greater height."

Even though the brush-pen was soft, the paper was prone to ink blotting and some characters contained more than fifteen strokes, every stroke was still clear and elegant and every character was in good balance. A spot of ink stained her left hand but she didn't seem to notice.

Cai Mingxin arrived in Xiamen on April 1 for a fifty-day summer school program in the Overseas Education College of Xiamen University. Her Chinese was good enough that she was chosen to speak as the student representative at the summer school opening ceremony. Cai said she had studied Chinese for more than ten years and had been learning calligraphy for five straight years in Manila. But she said she was more than happy to learn calligraphy here in Xiamen.

Now she is having calligraphy class once a week, one and a half hours each class. Cai was also excited to tell us about the coming Chinese painting class next week. "I have never tried that before and I am really looking forward to it."

Cold Mountain
冷山



Directed by Anthony Minghella
Cast: Jude Law, Nicole Kidman, Renee Zellweger
Synopsis: Based on one of the most acclaimed novels in recent memory, "Cold Mountain" sets off on a true American odyssey through a time that saw some of the greatest ferocity — and heroism — the nation has ever known.
This blockbuster will soon be shown at Jinying Cinema on April 30.
4月30日金鹰影院原声上映！
Venue: Jinying Cinema, on western side of the 5th floor of Shimao Commercial Building
地点：金鹰影院,世贸商城5楼西侧
Tel: 0592-5815000